Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Chocolate Sandwich Cookie

As tempted as I am to try all of the gorgeous, multi-layered cakes and intricate pastry recipes found in my many cookbooks, I find that people react most strongly to the simple, traditional desserts. I could spend a lot of time making something fancy, and often want to in order to challenge myself, but my friends request things like brownies or chocolate chip cookies most of the time. Although I'd love to perfect a French Apple Tart with an elaborate fanned top, when given a choice between that and something simple, the people in my life want the latter. What's a girl to do?

I mean, who do we all cook for anyway? I guess the selfish person in me wants to say, "Me!" since I want people to eat what I want to make for them. But of course nothing beats the satisfaction of seeing someone truly relish something you've created. So I guess it's a little of both. Most times, I'm hard pressed to make yet another chocolate chip cookie (boring!) but when I see the smiles of my friends when they eat one, I figure I could make them more often.

Well, here is a cookie that fills both needs. It certainly isn't a complicated recipe, but it does take a bit of time to shape, bake, fill and put together these little chocolate sandwiches. My friends love them because they remind them of Oreos, but these, my dear readers, are so much more. Each chocolate cookie is moist and tender since it's made with brown, not white, sugar. When slathered with a vanilla buttercream icing and sandwiched with another cookie, it transcends any Oreo you've ever eaten. I make them small so you can just pop one in your mouth. Part brownie, part sandwich cookie- these are simply delicious.

I love making them because it does take some time, patience and a steady hand. The dough comes together in a second since you simply melt the butter with the brown sugar, add chocolate until it melts, then add the dry ingredients- you can do it all in one pot. It's very slick but easy to manage- I level off a perfect measuring teaspoon with some, then nudge it out with the edge of a butter knife to form a little half-moon. After about 7 minutes in the oven, they come out only slightly bigger than when they went in. After cooling, I just set up an assembly line of sorts and pipe the icing onto each half, make the sandwich and let the cookies sit out until the icing is truly set.

These travel extremely well - so next time you get a request for a traditional cookie, I highly recommend these. Of course, if you don't want to share, they're the perfect thing to have with a cup of coffee on a Sunday afternoon............